Let's Gather 'Round the Campfire
by PaperKayak
Summary: The summer camp AU that nobody asked for and everyone needed.
1. Chapter 1

"All right, counselors!" Coran called as he wove his way through the occupied tables in the mess hall, a stack of manila folders cradled at the crook of his arm. "I'm passing out your opening day packets now! These have your camper listings, all your camper orientation materials, and your schedules for the week, so do not lose these!"

Mumbles of 'of course not' and 'we won't' rose from the assembled staff members, even though Coran knew as well as they did that a couple of them will definitely have already misplaced it before the day was up. All throughout staff training week, the summer staff had been running the full-time staff ragged this way; the Lost and Found was already starting to fill up handsomely, and one particularly talented counselor had even managed to lose an entire tent.

Fortunately, even in the short span of a week, the counselors had overall done a good job of getting their acts together and getting the place running smoothly. They'd had little time to rest all week, since from sunup to sundown they were learning the counselor duties, every policy and procedure the camp could come up with, how to run every rec activity in Coran's stack of binders, the purpose of every single solitary object on the campgrounds, and whatever else could be crammed into their heads before opening day. Despite the staff's initial complaining and exhaustion, they were quick learners, and they remembered the lessons well. And after she had finished giving them an afternoon of first aid training, Honerva, the camp nurse, had even called this summer's staff "not a total disaster" – which, according to Coran, was some of the highest praise she ever offered.

And as slowly as the week had seemed to drag by, Sunday still came around far more abruptly than any of them had expected. The shift from learning the ropes to eating "the last quiet meal you'll have for the rest of the summer, so you'd better enjoy it while you can" (as Sal, the head cook, so inspiringly phrased it) was sudden enough that they barely had time to think about it. Which might very well be the case, actually, Shiro realized. They were all as prepared as they could ever be, but there was still a distinct nervous anticipation in the air among the staff, especially in the first-time staff members like himself. They probably didn't want to give the staff time to dwell on things that would get them anxious about the coming months.

Once his own folder was slapped down in front of him, just barely avoiding landing in the streaks of ketchup left over on Shiro's otherwise empty plate, he snatched it up eagerly, flicking it open with a haste that probably should have given him a paper cut.

"Easy, tiger," came a voice across the table from him. Matt Holt was smirking over at him as he opened his own folder with exaggerated formality. "It's not going to run off if you don't pounce it in time."

"Oh, hush, let me have this," Shiro replied, rolling his eyes. Not for the first time he questioned his sanity for making the decision to share such close quarters with Matt all summer, but, of course, Matt had been the one to convince him to apply for the counselor position in the first place. Shiro's family had been friends with the Holts since as far back as any of them could remember, and as kids, Matt and Shiro had been remarkably close despite two years of age difference; they had even attended Camp Altea together. Shiro had never considered returning to the camp as a staff member, and he doubted he would have if Matt hadn't done so first.

It had taken some convincing on Matt's part. Shiro was approaching his graduation from high school, soon to be making the transition to college, and he had planned on spending summer adjusting to that transition, not camping.

"Dude," Matt had told him, "How much work do you think that's going to take? You've got, like, three months of summer, and there's only so much schedule planning and dorm shopping you can do."

"It's not just that," Shiro had said. "I think I might want to take a summer internship."

"Bullshit. You're not gonna get college credit for an internship you take before your first semester's even started. You're just gonna take that concession stand job at the city pool again."

"I've also got to get a lot of info moved around – banking stuff, absentee voter registration, pharmacy records. On account of going out of state and all."

"You're going to Arizona, man, not Pluto. You'll just be filling out a few forms and making a couple phone calls. It won't take three months.

"Well, I'll also need the time to mentally prepare for everything."

"So buy a yoga DVD and bring it to camp. Seriously, Shiro, this would be great for you. You'd make an awesome camp counselor."

"I don't – "

"And besides," Matt had interrupted him. "I've already started making plans for a summer abroad next year, and then I'll be starting my master's program, so this is gonna be my last year as a counselor. Which means it's the only year we can do it together. Come on, Shiro." He drew a comical frown and batted his eyelashes. "Are you saying you don't want to hang out with me all summer? And Pidge is registered to be a camper this year, you know. Am I gonna have to tell her that her big brother Shiro doesn't want to spend time with her?"

"That is low, Holt."

"I fight dirty, Shirogane."

Finally Shiro relented and filled out the online application, Matt playing back-seat driver as he leaned over his shoulder to throw out ideas for his cover letter, tell him what answers they were looking for in all the applications' questions, insist that he put his dad down as a reference. "I'm pretty much the best counselor there," he said. "So if they see that my genetic predecessor has given you his seal of approval, they'll be scrambling over themselves to hire you."

"I hope you didn't put down 'modest' as one of your three biggest strengths when you filled this thing out," Shiro replied tonelessly.

"I totally did. But I made up for it by putting down 'prone to exaggeration' as my biggest weakness."

"How noble of you."

"Yeah, I wrote that too. My three biggest strengths: modest, noble, and unkillable."

For all that Matt joked around during the application-filling process, it turned out that his help was still useful. Shiro ended up getting a job interview with the camp director, and a week later, an e-mail topped with the camp header welcomed him to the Camp Altea Summer Staff.

And as reluctant as he had been to apply in the first place, the closer they came to opening day, the more excited Shiro had become. He had forgotten, until he set foot back on the campgrounds for staff training week, how much he had enjoyed his time spent here as a camper. There was an exhilarating sense of energy and liberation in the camp atmosphere. He didn't know how much of that was just from getting to spend so much time outdoors and in the woods, how much was the sense of independence that came from getting to spend so long away from home, how much was just the natural enthusiasm possessed by ten-year-olds everywhere, and how much was a side effect of s'mores-induced sugar highs, but he'd had the time of his life out here, and now, he was ready to pass that along to the next generation of campers.

A sticky-backed name tag fluttered out of the folder when he opened it, and a Sharpie was working its way down the table as the counselors scrawled out their names on them and attached them to their shirts. Shiro examined the rest of the folder's contents as he waited for it. The pages in the packet were printed on about a dozen different colors of copy paper to tell the contents apart at a glance, and although it was packed full, the stack of papers still wasn't a fraction as thick as the staff handbooks they'd been given at the beginning of training week, so Shiro was relieved he wouldn't have to do any excessively heavy reading today. The first couple of pages contained the camp's mission statement and the official camp rules, all of which Shiro knew by heart by now. Next in the stack was his cabin listing, which he read several times over, trying to commit the names to memory for when he met his campers for the first time.

 _Cabin C_

 _Counselor: Takashi (Shiro) Shirogane_

 _Family cabin: Cabin D – Allura Brooks_

 _Campers:_

 _Timothy Bell_

 _Rolo Chabert_

 _Hunk Garrett_

 _Duncan Hartwell_

 _Andrew Ing_

 _Chip Khouth_

 _Keith Kogane_

 _Lance McClain_

 _Benji Rial_

 _Daniel Tong_

He tried to picture what the campers might look like based on their names alone, knowing as he did so that his mental pictures would probably be wildly inaccurate, but it was a fun diversion anyhow. He was engrossed enough in it that didn't even notice Matt trying to get his attention until the latter whistled sharply at him.

"Hm? What?"

"Earth to Shiro," Matt said. "Your turn with the marker." He rolled the Sharpie toward Shiro and left his hand out, now making a grabbing motion with the fingers. "Let me see your list."

"Why?" Shiro asked, uncapping the marker.

"I wanna see if I recognize any of the names."

"Because you just know so many late-elementary-school-aged boys?"

"I'm just trying to see if there are any return campers. Gimme."

Shiro obliged and passed the paper over to Matt, whose lips moved silently as he read through the names. "See anyone you recognize?" Shiro asked.

Matt shook his head. "Don't think so. Although, wait, you've got a McClain. I had a Teresa McClain in my family cabin last year, and she had like a billion siblings who'd been taking turns as campers pretty much every summer, soon as they were old enough. Wonder if this guy is one of them. Ask him for me."

"Will do."

"And if he is, tell him his big sister cheats at foosball."

"I'll make that my top priority. Can I have my list back?"

Matt passed it back to him, and Shiro continued perusing his papers. Orientation checklist, contact information for all the campers, reminders for emergency procedures, all the staff assignments for the week. There were two copies of his schedule; he folded one up to carry in his pocket and made a mental note to tack the other up in his cabin.

Apparently he had sifted through the materials in precisely the correct amount of time, because just as he was closing his folder, Coran was climbing onto a chair in the front of the room, turning toward the staff. He had brought a spoon and cup along with him, and he banged the former against the latter to get their attention. It was unnecessary; when Coran's head of starkly orange hair was the tallest point in the room, he was basically a human beacon torch, and he wouldn't have gone unnoticed for long.

"Ladies and gentlemen," he said, his voice loud and clear in his 'announcement' mode. "In a minute, you will take your dishes and silverware up to the counter in an orderly fashion, and then I want you to report immediately to your assigned tasks for registration and move-in. I want you all to be ready to make the best first impressions you can – there's a reason we let you sleep in today, you know. We've got a jam-packed day, and a jam-packed summer, ahead of us. I don't want to see any of you burning out on me."

He smiled then, the corners of his mustache turning upward along with his lips as he beamed out at them. "I'm looking forward to an incredible summer, people. We've got a great crop of counselors this year, and I know I can count on you all to create a fun and memorable experience for our campers. This is what we've been preparing for.

"If you have any last-minute questions," he added, "Don't hesitate to come to me. And if you can't find me, Alfor will be available in his office until the end of registration time. Make sure to be back in your cabins by four o'clock on the dot to start your campers on orientation – it's much too early in the summer for any of you to start developing a habit of tardiness. All right, Alteans!" He clapped his hands together, or came as close to doing so as he could with a spoon and cup in one hand. "Let's clear out and get this summer off to a wonderful start!"

He was answered with a smattering of applause from the assembled staff, drowned out by the scraping of chairs against the linoleum floor echoing off the walls as they got to their feet and gathered their dishes. Coran stepped down from his chair and made to exit the hall, but he paused, frowning into the crowd of counselors. "Matthew!" he barked.

"Yes sir?" Matt replied innocently.

"What on earth is that?"

He pointed toward Matt's chest, and Shiro turned to look. On his name tag, under the pre-printed 'Hello, my name is…' heading, Matt had written 'Inigo Montoya'.

"I'm trying out a new nickname."

Coran sighed and pulled the roll of name tag stickers out of his pocket. "Quiznak, Matthew, can't we go one year without you trying to weird everyone out on opening day?" He handed him the name tag and fished an extra marker from his pocket. "Don't waste this one."

"I won't, I promise," Matt said, but Coran didn't make any move to leave until he'd watched Matt write his actual name down onto the tag. When the man nodded and turned away, Matt stuck his new name tag onto his shirt right below the other.

"So you're gonna wear two name tags?" Shiro asked, following Matt back into the gradually dispersing line at the kitchen counter.

"Identity crisis," Matt answered with a shrug. "So what's your big opening day assignment?"

"Cabin area. Helping with unloading luggage."

Matt chuckled. "Man, you drew the short straw. That's the worst one."

"What'd you get?"

"T-shirt shack. Shade, air-conditioning, and taking people's money. I win."

"I'll trade you."

"Not on your life." He and Shiro finished passing their dishes over to be washed and started heading out of the mess hall. "You know what you should do?"

"What?" Shiro asked.

"You should put on something with long sleeves and loosen your prosthetic where it's attached. Then, when you go to help pick up someone's luggage, let your arm fall off and just start freaking out, act like it's your real arm and this has never happened before. Start some kid's summer off with a nice adrenaline rush."

Shiro rolled his eyes. "Why are you trying to get me fired on the first day, Matt?"

"I'm not. I'm just brainstorming." He slowed as they reached the lobby of the main hall, since this was where the T-shirt shack was. The name was a bit of a misnomer; at one point in the past, sure, it had just sold Camp Altea T-shirts, but they'd expanded ages ago to include Camp Altea hoodies, sweat pants, duffle bags, stuffed animals, canteens, blankets, and baseball caps. Shiro himself had bought a cap for himself back when he was a camper, and he figured he probably still had it somewhere back at home, he just hadn't thought to look for it for years.

The other counselor working the shirt shack, Hira, was already there, and she'd acquired a key from somewhere and was shimmying the lock on the door to get in. Matt, ever the resourceful one, elected to simply haul himself up over the countertop and tuck and roll into the shack. Hira cast him an annoyed glance, which became less annoyed and more smug when Matt knocked his head on one of the shelves while getting to his feet.

"You all right there?" Shiro asked.

"Yeah, yeah," Matt said, rubbing his head where he'd hit it. "Having a flair for the dramatic comes at a price, I guess."

"Is someone's opening-day assignment not as cushy as they were expecting?"

"Still beats the hell out of move-in duty, asshole."

"You know, you can't use language like that around the campers."

"Which is why I'm getting it out of my system now." He smiled. "You know, you do have one advantage from being assigned to move-in."

"What's that?"

"You get to meet your campers before any of the rest of us do. And, hey, you don't have to meet them ten at a time, so learning the names will be quicker. That part always takes me a long time. Like, so long it's honestly kinda embarrassing. Don't get me wrong, I love the campers like my own brothers, but names nowadays are so weird."

Shiro raised an eyebrow. "Like your own brothers, huh? Don't let Pidge hear you talking like that, she'll think they're trying to edge her out."

"Nah, she knows, she gets it. I can't help it. You really start getting attached to the little guys, right off the bat. They're like mold the way they grow on you. I'll bet my whole summer's pay that on closing day you'll be crying like a mother sending her only kid off to college. It's a phenomenon, let me tell you."

"I don't think you'll have to worry about me becoming an emotional wreck anytime soon," Shiro laughed. "I'm just becoming these kids' camp counselor. I'm not _adopting_ them."

"Take it from someone who's done this twice before, Shiro," Matt said, his smirk coming back now in full force. "By the end of the summer, you'll wish you were."

* * *

So, hey, summer camp AU. I've wanted to write one for the longest time, I just had to find the perfect fandom to write it for, and I think I finally found the one with Voltron.

Camp's a pretty huge part of my life. My dad is an executive director at a summer camp, and every one of my siblings and I spent most of our summers on campgrounds either as guests, campers, or staff members. My mom and dad actually even first met as co-counselors at camp. I learned how to kayak before I learned to tie my shoes. In this fic, I'm going to be drawing A LOT of influence from my own camp experience, including how Camp Altea is set up in terms of staffing, procedures, activities, and even building locations. And I'll even be sprinkling in some personal camp memories; see if you can figure out which events throughout the fic are Based on a True Story.

Anyway, camp counselor Shiro. Enjoy.

(By the way, for those who are following me for It's Gonna Get Ghostly, the next chapter should be up tomorrow.)


	2. Chapter 2

"Shiro! Shiro Shiro Shiro Shiroooooo!"

He had only a moment to look around and determine the source of the voice, and it wasn't enough time. That was all the warning he got before a small figure leapt unceremoniously onto his back, nearly knocking him over. Small arms hooked around his shoulders and little feet in green flip-flops smacked against his stomach as the attached legs hooked around his waist.

"You know," Shiro grunted, trying to crane his neck around to meet his assailant's face but not getting much besides glimpses of cinnamon-brown hair, "A hello and a handshake is still acceptable."

The arms around his shoulders tightened in a hug and Pidge leaned her head over Shiro's shoulder. "It's an emergency," she stage-whispered. "You gotta help me. I'm gonna die."

"Ooh, that sounds serious."

"It is. This summer, I'm going to die. Camp's gonna kill me."

"And why is that?"

"Because," another voice piped up, and Shiro turned to see the familiar face of one Sam Holt striding toward him, a large rolling suitcase in hand that didn't seem to be faring well on the gravel-and-dirt path, "It only really hit Pidge on the ride up here that she's not going to be around technology all summer."

Shiro grinned over at the pouting Pidge on his shoulder. "What do you mean, no technology? We have lightbulbs, tons of them."

Pidge blew a dry raspberry and, although he couldn't see her expression well at this angle, Shiro was pretty sure he could hear her rolling her eyes. "No Netflix all summer. It's going to be torture, Shiro."

"We have movie nights. That's sort of like Netflix, right?"

"Not even a little."

Sam chuckled. "Well, think of this as an opportunity for experiences you just can't get sitting in front of a screen. And remember, Matt's done this several times before, and he came out of it just fine."

"No he didn't. Matt's crazy."

"Yeah, but that's not the camp's fault," Shiro remarked. "He was always crazy. Also, you're starting to break my spine there, kiddo. Are you gonna slide off, or am I gonna have to flip you?"

Pidge squeezed tighter around Shiro. "You're gonna have to flip me."

"Pidge, just give Shiro his spine back." Colleen this time, joining the group with bulky duffel bags draped over either shoulder, already looking drained from the effort. Pidge audibly sighed, but she obliged and dropped onto the ground. "By the way, Sam," Colleen continued, "Is there any particular reason we let her pack bags full of cinderblocks?"

"I can take one of those for you, Colleen," Shiro said, moving to slip his left arm through the strap of one of the duffel bags.

"Oh, you don't have to, Shiro."

"Actually, I do. It's my job for the day and I'm slacking right now." He grinned as Colleen let the bag slide off her shoulder and he took it to sling over his own. "You're as bad as Matt; you Holts are gonna have to work harder than that if you want to trick me into getting fired. Speaking of, have you stopped and said hi to him yet? I think he'd be ticked if you came to me before him."

"No worries, we did," said Sam. "Couldn't miss him, since we had to go to the mess hall to sign Pidge in and get her cabin assignments, so we stopped for a souvenir. You wanna show Shiro the shirt you got?"

"I'm gonna wear it tomorrow," Pidge said. "He can see it then."

"I'll be sure to track you down," said Shiro. "So." He patted at the duffel bag strap at his shoulder. "Where are we hauling this stuff?"

"Ah, let's see, Pidge is in Cabin D, right?" Sam asked. Pidge nodded.

Shiro's face lit up. "No kidding? Hey, you're going to be in my family cabin, Pidge! Guess we're going to be seeing a whole lot of each other this summer. Come on, it's down this way."

He began leading the Holts through the cabin area. It had been steadily growing more lively since registration had begun. Shiro spotted a couple other people in staff shirts going by, other unfortunate souls who had been assigned move-in duty as well; and parents weaving through, arms laden with duffel bags and backpacks and bedding and shower caddies. Some of the kids were helping to carry their belongings to the cabins, while others, like Pidge, were bouncing alongside their parents empty-handed, using that energy to stare around the cabin area and start learning the lay of the land, committing the locations of the bathhouse and tetherball pole and the little picnic shelter to memory and trying to catch glimpses into the cabins they passed by through the windows and open doors.

"You're going to love Allura, by the way," he said to Pidge. "Your counselor. She's really sweet. And her dad's the executive director here, so she knows this place like the back of her hand."

Pidge scrunched up her brows. "Allura?" she repeated, before turning to look toward her parents. "Isn't that the one Matt was in love with last year?"

Shiro's own brows shot upwards. Now that he thought about it, Matt had behaved a little differently around Allura during training week than he had around the other counselors; he'd shown a tendency to become more loquacious and dramatic when she was around, which, for Matt, was really saying something. Shiro wondered if what he'd witnessed was Matt's version of flirty posturing.

"I don't think he ever said he was in love with her," Sam said. "He just mentioned her a few times."

"And he said she was pretty!" Pidge retorted. "I'm gonna have Matt's girlfriend for a counselor! Oh my god, I'm gonna have fun with this."

"Oh my gosh," Sam corrected her.

Pidge huffed. "How come Matt's allowed to say it the other way but I'm not?"

"Matt's a heathen."

"I wanna be a heathen too."

"Wait 'til you're older, sweetie," said Colleen. They had reached the cabin by this point, and the moment they stepped through the door, Colleen dropped her bag down onto the floor and shook out her arm. "Does Pidge just pick any bed?"

Shiro nodded. "Any open one." It looked like only two of the bunks had been claimed so far, not counting Allura's single bed in the corner. One of the campers was still in the cabin, with a man Shiro figured was probably her dad, trying a little electric fan onto her bedrail; there was no sign of the other camper, but the sloppily made bed suggested that she'd simply set up as quickly as she could and then taken off to explore.

"Top bunk!" Pidge called, running to the nearest bunkbed and climbing the ladder in two strides, then settling cross-legged onto the mattress to claim her territory. She pulled aside the thin curtains on the little window beside it and peered out. "Which cabin's yours, Shiro?"

Shiro stepped onto the frame of the bottom bunk so he could lean over the railing of the top one. "The next one over," he said, pointing. "On the right."

Pidge squinted at it. "Is yours bigger than ours?"

"They're all the same size. Must be the angle."

"Pidge!" Sam called. "If you're not going to help carry, you at least have to help unload your stuff. Get down here."

Pidge groaned, but she hopped down from her bed and began helping her parents set up her luggage in the array of shelves in the center of the cabin. "Have you met any of your campers yet, Shiro?" Colleen asked as they unpacked.

"A couple," Shiro answered. "One of mine was here right at the start of registration; think he wanted to make sure he got his pick of the bunks. And another two came in a little while ago, but I didn't really get a chance to meet them. They just dropped all their stuff onto their beds and left straight for the lake. I think they – "

He cut himself off as he heard a loud and long 'whooooo!' sounding from outside. He glanced out the open door to look for the source, which wasn't hard to find. A boy was running through the cabin area, shouting what might have been a battlecry as he zigzagged through, his duffel bag bouncing off his back and side hard enough that Shiro was certain it should have been hurting him, but if it was, the boy wasn't noticing. He simply bounded by, right through the front door of Cabin C. And something about his energy combined with the bright blue of his shirt had Shiro thinking stupidly for a moment, Huh, I'm gonna be Sonic the Hedgehog's camp counselor. The boy had only been inside the cabin for a second or two before he leaned out the door again, duffel bag gone, and shouted, "Come on, Hunk, hurry up!"

"I think I just got another camper," Shiro said. "Do you mind if I – ?"

"Go right ahead," Sam said, waving him away. "We're good to go here."

"See you later, Shiro!" Pidge called as he left through the front door with a nod of goodbye.

He approached his own cabin at the same time as another boy – a husky, dark-skinned kid, tall for a camper, his hair held back by a yellow headband, huffing from trying to run to the cabin while laden with luggage. Shiro guessed that this was the Hunk the other boy had been shouting to, and he recognized the name from his camper list; it wasn't exactly a common name.

Shiro held the door open for the boy, who smiled gratefully at him gratefully as he stepped inside. There were two other boys in the cabin besides Hunk. One was pulling a fitted sheet over one of the bottom bunks in far corner, aided by a plump, graying-haired woman, both with their backs to Shiro at the moment. Apparently they had slipped into the cabin without Shiro's notice.

The other, the boy who had been making the commotion a minute ago, was sitting on one of the top bunks, his legs dangling over the ladder, his duffel bag beside him on the empty mattress. He was lean and seemed to be all limbs, with his long arms and legs swinging loosely, and he had a coppery tan and a scruff of brown hair that had the appearance of bedhead, but in that symmetrical, purposeful way that hints that it took effort to look casual. He was bouncing slightly on the mattress, causing the bunkbed's frame to emit some soft creaks, and he grinned broadly when his friend came in. "Hunk!" he said, still half-shouting even in the cabin. "I picked our beds!"

"All right!" Hunk replied, moving to set his own bag on the bottom bunk beneath him.

The bouncing boy frowned. "What are you doing?"

"What? I'm claiming my bed."

"No, no, no, no, you're supposed to take the other top bunk, next to mine."

"But I don't want to sleep in a top bunk. I could fall off."

"No you won't, there's a railing thingy! And we can talk to each other easy that way. How are we gonna talk if I'm up here and you're down there?"

"You could take a bottom bunk."

The boy scoffed. "No way, I called top bunk!"

"Well, maybe you could lean over the side and talk to me upside-down."

"But I could fall!"

"Indoor voice, Lance," came another voice from behind Shiro. He turned to see a woman in the doorway carrying an armful of bedding. She was slim and tall, with copper skin and long hair the same color as the boy on the top bunk – Lance, apparently – and a face that was just beginning to wrinkle with age. Lance smiled apologetically toward her before he and Hunk resumed their argument, in somewhat softer tones. "Are you the counselor?"

"That'd be me," Shiro answered, leaning down to help pick up the blanket that had nearly been dragging along the ground. "Takashi Shirogane. I go by Shiro."

"Marisol McClain," the woman introduced in return. "I go by Marisol McClain."

"Ah, so you'd be Lance's mom?"

She nodded. "And I promise you, he'll calm down in a while. He always gets extra rowdy whenever he goes somewhere new."

"All right. I'll try not to give him too much coffee in the meantime," Shiro said with a smile. "Hunk yours as well?"

"He's a friend of Lance's. His mothers and I decided I would bring the boys to camp and one of them would pick them up. Makes for two round-trip flights we don't have to buy tickets for."

"You flew here?"

"Mm-hm. We're from Fort Lauderdale."

Shiro let out a low whistle. "Wow. That's a heck of a trip to go to camp."

Marisol shrugged. "We've been sending all our kids here. For his older siblings it made more sense; we have family in Dallas and they went to camp with their cousins, same age as them. Now we've just made it the tradition, I guess. To come here once they're old enough, and bring a friend along if there's no cousin available in the age bracket."

Shiro made a mental note to tell Matt that apparently he'd been right; Lance was a member of the McClain clan he knew. "Well, it's good to have them."

Marisol smiled. "Here's hoping you still feel that way in a few weeks. Hey, Lance, Hunk!" she called. "Have you said hi to your counselor yet?"

"Nope!" Lance shouted back.

She rolled her eyes. "I meant, come say hi to your counselor!"

"Hey, I'm Shiro," Shiro said, waving.

"Hi, Shiro," the boys chorused back to him. Lance pointed a finger at him and added, "I like your arm."

"Thanks."

"It's like a robot arm. Are you part robot?"

"I never really thought of it that way," Shiro answered. "But I suppose, technically, yeah, you could say that."

Lance's eyes widened. "Awesome! Can it be a weapon? Can you shoot stuff out of it?"

"No, it's just an arm," Shiro said, and he couldn't help from grinning at the look of disappointment that instantly overtook the boy's face. "But maybe someday I'll be able to upgrade it. Once the world's ready for that."

"You should," Lance said with a nod. He leaned over to dangle his head next to the bottom bunk. "Hey, Hunk, if you could trade your arm for a robot arm, would you do it?"

"No thanks," Hunk said. "I like my arms."

"I like mine too, but I'd like robot arms more."

"So Shiro," Marisol piped up, "They said at the mess hall that a few of the activities would be up during registration time. Anything these two might be up for?"

"Oh, sure. The lake's open if you want to swim a bit, and there's cornhole and lawn darts set up behind the mess hall. We've got wranglers on duty, so if they want to feed the horses or llamas, they can – "

"I wanna meet the llamas!" Lance interrupted. "Hunk, wanna do that? Wanna go ride a llama?"

"I dunno…" Hunk said slowly.

"Actually, you can't ride the llamas," said Shiro. "Only the horses. The llamas are pretty much just for show. But you can feed them and pet them. They're very friendly," he added when he noticed Hunk still looked nervous.

Lance jumped down to the floor from his bunk. "Come on, Hunk! Llamas! You don't gotta feed them if you don't wanna, but you gotta watch me do it, all right?"

Hunk took another second to mull it over, then nodded and got up from his own bunk. "Okay, I can do that."

Lance let out a whoop of excitement. "Mamá, let's go meet the llamas!"

"I'm coming," Marisol said. She dropped the bedding in her arms in a pile onto Hunk's bunk and turned to Shiro. "Is it all right if I leave that here for and come back later, to finish unpacking?"

"That's fine," Shiro said, and Lance seemed to take that as his cue to leave, since immediately he grabbed Hunk's hand and raced out the door. "You know where the stables are?" he asked Marisol.

She nodded. "I think. The entry road passed by it, right? Across the basketball courts?"

"You got it," Shiro said. With a wave, Marisol left, hastening to catch up with her son and his friend, leaving the cabin suddenly very quiet save for a soft voice in the back corner. Shiro had nearly forgotten that there was another boy still in the cabin, and he turned toward him. The bed was fully made now, but the boy was still facing away, nodding silently along as the woman he was with leaned in and talked to him, too low for Shiro to hear. From what he could tell, the boy was on the small side, although that may just have been because the faded red T-shirt he wore looked to be at least a size too large on him. His stark-black hair brushed just past his collar, the ends jagged, and he stood with a stiff back and crossed arms.

Shiro approached them just as the woman straightened up, and he caught the tail end of what she was saying (" – get rest of it out of the car") before she was brushing by him and out of the cabin with no acknowledgement toward him at all. The boy reached down to pick a bag up off the floor, and clambered onto the bed to start moving his toiletries out of the bag and onto the little shelf beside his bed.

"Need any help?" Shiro asked. It seemed he should have given a little more warning that he was there, because the boy jumped in surprise, knocking his head against the support beam for the bed above him and letting out a hiss of pain. "Whoa, hey, I'm sorry!" Shiro cried. "Didn't mean to startle you. Are you hurt?"

"I'm fine," the boy mumbled, slipping out of the bunk, but the fact that his eyes were scrunched closed and his hand was pressed to his head said otherwise.

"Could I check?" Shiro asked. The boy shook his head. "Come on, please, I feel bad. The least I could do is make sure you're not bleeding or anything."

The boy sighed, but he obliged, moving his hand off of his head for Shiro to take over, and the latter carefully parted the kid's hair to look for any blood or bruises forming. He noticed, as he did so, that the kid's hairstyle was, well, something of a mess. It was shorter at the sides than he would have expected based on the back, and his bangs were at an awkward phase where they were long enough to get in his eyes but not long enough to frame his face. Overall, it looked as if he'd had to pick between several different hair lengths, had been unable to choose, and had ultimately decided to try to go with all of them at the same time.

"Well, there's a little bit of a bump forming," Shiro said, "But no blood. You should be fine."

"I know," the kid grunted. He had kept his eyes wrenched shut and shoulders tense as Shiro had checked his head, the way some people do when they're getting a shot, but when he moved his hand away, the kid relaxed a little, letting his shoulders down and opening his eyes. The eyes, Shiro had to admit, were a little disconcerting at first glance. Oddly wide, the whites of his eyes actually a stark paper white that didn't seem to fade to pink the way they were supposed to, and irises that were a strange shade, more purple than gray.

Shiro didn't stare, although the boy didn't extend him the same courtesy, instead looking at him as intensely as though he were trying to memorize every pore on his face. "Well, you know, I just wanted to make sure. I'm Shiro, by the way. I'm your counselor, if you're in the right cabin. And, hey, I promise you, causing head injuries is not a regular thing for me."

The boy continued staring at Shiro for a moment, chewing at his lip like he was trying to come up with a response, and he simply replied, "Keith."

"It's good to meet you Keith." He held out his non-prosthetic hand to shake.

After a bit of hesitation, Keith took it, giving it a single shake before dropping his hand to his side. "I thought people shook with the right hand," he said.

"Normally, yeah," Shiro said. "But my right hand isn't all that great at giving a firm handshake, see."

"Oh," Keith said, and then remained silent, still watching Shiro. He folded his arms as he seemed to wait for Shiro to take charge of the conversation again.

"I, uh, I like your hippo," Shiro remarked. He gestured toward where a plush gray hippopotamus, well-worn and threadbare in spots, sat beside the pillow. Keith said nothing. "Does it have a name?" Shiro asked. Keith nodded. "What is it?"

"Henry," Keith answered.

"Well, I like him."

Keith just nodded again, and he seemed to decide that this line of conversation was no longer worth pursuing, since he got back onto his bunk and silently continued organizing his shelf. "Have you brought most of your luggage in already?" Shiro asked. "Or could your mom use some help?"

Keith glanced up at him with a frown. "Who?"

"The woman who was helping with your bed?"

The frown deepened. "Kim's not my mom. She's my case worker."

"Oh." Wow, Shiro, he thought to himself. Great job you're doing here. Open mouth, insert foot. "Well, uh, do you – do you think Kim may need a hand?" he asked. Keith shrugged. "Okay, well, I'm going to head out and check. See you in a moment." Keith didn't respond, so Shiro stepped slowly away and left the cabin.

He spotted the woman who'd been in the cabin walking in from the direction of the parking lot, a small duffel slung onto one shoulder and a backpack on the other. He hastened to her. "I can take one of those for you," he offered.

"Thank you," she said, passing the duffel to him and continuing on her way.

"You're Kim, right?" Shiro asked. "You brought Keith? I'm Shiro, his counselor."

She nodded with a hum of confirmation. For a moment, it seemed like that was all he was going to get from her – like she was just as talkative as Keith – but then she said, "It's a good camp, isn't it. Not many give financial aid like that. It's good of you."

"Oh. Right." He'd nearly forgotten about the camp's Outreach Financial Aid program, since he'd only even been informed of it a few times in passing. Every summer, as a goodwill gesture, the camp fully covered the costs for a handful of campers who were from impoverished homes or in the foster system. Considering that Keith had called Kim his case worker, Shiro assumed his case was the latter. "Well, hey, glad it could give Keith a chance to come here."

"It'll be good for him," Kim said. "He likes fresh air, needs more of it. It'll be good."

"Mm-hm." They carried on in silence for a moment, until Shiro cautiously asked, "Hey, uh, about Keith. If you don't mind me asking. Is, um… is Keith – ?"

"He's shy," Kim cut him off. "Just make sure to let him have his space when he needs it and he'll be fine."

"Oh."

"He's a good kid," she continued, and she looked over toward Shiro intently as if she expected him to try to argue the point. "He is."

"Yeah, he seemed like it," Shiro said. He hadn't, really, but he hadn't appeared to be a bad kid either. As far as Shiro could tell thus far, Keith was true neutral. But on the whole, most kids tended toward 'good'. "I'm glad I get to have him as a camper."

"That's good," Kim said. Must have been a favorite word of hers. They reached Cabin C and she reached out an arm to take the other bag back from Shiro. "I can finish helping Keith set up, if you've got work to do."

"You sure?" Shiro asked, passing the bag back to her.

"I'm sure. It was good to meet you, Shiro."

"Right. You too."

Kim went into the cabin and shut the door behind her. For a moment, Shiro was inexplicably tempted to follow her in, but he stepped away. They were approaching the halfway point of registration time, which was going to be the zenith of activity for people moving in and out and getting settled, so he'd have a full workload for a bit. He turned and made his way through the cabin area and back toward the parking lot, ready to play bellhop for another couple of hours before camp actually, officially, began.


End file.
